Sources of Rail Transport Efficiency in Supply Chains

Abstract

Railway transport is of special strategic importance for Russia. The unconditional leader of both the domestic and the world rail transport market is JSC “Russian Railways” with a charter capital of 2212238.7 million rubles. Given the technical characteristics of the company, it is worth noting that the operational length of railways of JSC “Russian Railways” is 85.5 thousand km; the number of freight cars of all types – 196,300, freight trunk locomotives – 11,8 thousand, passenger locomotives – 3,1 thousand, passenger carriages of long-distance – 21 thousand. JSC “Russian Railways” – being a participant in the supply chain needs to find sources for enhancing efficiency of its activities. In this regard, the objective of this study is to determine the sources of the company’s performance in the process of its interaction with suppliers of material and technical resources, on the one hand, and consumers of services, on the other. For this purpose, the research work analyzes the main indicators of commercial activity of JSC “Russian Railway”; reveals trends and prospects for the company’s development. To improve the management of suppliers of material and technical resources for the needs of JSC “Russian Railways”, the company’s strategic goals, activities for their achievement and key indicators of supply efficiency are defined. As part of improving the quality and accessibility of rail transport services the overall level of satisfaction of cargo owners with the quality of railway transport services was carried out

Introduction

The railway complex is of strategic importance for Russia, providing freight and passenger transport, stability in matters of national security and international cooperation. The largest player on the railway transport market is JSC “Russian Railways”, which is founded by the Russian Federation. In the
context of the financial crisis, the search for ways to improve the performance efficiency of a state-owned company in the railway transport market comes to the fore. In turn, under current conditions, each company needs to coordinate its actions with the requirements of partners in the supply chain, satisfying the old requirements and meeting the new ones (Kumar et al., 2017; Banchuen, Sadler & Shee, 2017) [1-2]. The stability of the entire supply chain is affected by stability indicators of each partner. Relations between counterparties play an important role in increasing the sustainability of the entire supply chain (Kumar & Rahman, 2015; Waters & Rinsler, 2014) [3-4]. A wellmanaged supply chain usually establishes strategic and operational objectives, comparing the actions of its participants at each level (Lee & Nam, 2016; Saak, 2016) [4-5]. Thus, this study covers a set of issues that determine the sources of efficiency of JSC “Russian Railways” in the process of interaction with counterparties in the supply chain. For this purpose, the main business indicators of JSC “Russian Railways” were studied; strategic guidelines were defined in the process of supply management and interaction with suppliers of material and technical resources for the carrier’s needs; a methodology for assessing the overall level of satisfaction of cargo owners with the quality of rail transport services was proposed.

Conclusion

The railway industry in our country satisfies the needs of the state, population and companies in rail freight and passenger transport. The conducted research made it possible to determine a set of measures to improve the transport system efficiency in supply chains. For this purpose, the main indicators of Russian Railways were analyzed: the company’s profitability, the dynamics of profit and loss indicators, the cost of services, and the growth which revealed the need to search for sources of its reduction. Also, a mechanism for interaction with suppliers of material and technical resources for the needs of JSC “Russian Railways” was proposed, strategic guidelines, actions for their achievement and key indicators of the carrier’s supply efficiency were identified. In order to identify problems and determine sources for the efficiency of carriers’ activities, the study was conducted on the overall level of cargo owners’ satisfaction with the quality of railway transport services by such parameters as: the cost of services of JSC “Russian Railways”; the cost of services of companies-operators; the prompt approval of applications with cargo owners; the availability of cars of the required type in the required quantity; technical conditions of cars; the possibility of submitting cars for loading / unloading according to the schedule; the compliance with the delivery time; the level of information technology and the speed of information transfer; the safety of cargo; the level of transport infrastructure development; the level of satisfaction of demand for transport.